Mal d'Afrique

 My Christmas guests have left.

It is a clear, cold Sunday in Siena, and I am sitting by my Christmas tree listening to Songhoy Blues.

 A feeling of loss is invading me. There are many reasons for this just now, but a significant one is  the   pictures I have received from Djenne which shows the utter destruction of what was once Hotel Djenne Djenno.

 The severe floods this autumn have demolished the mud walls and only ruins remain. The picture above shows the the remains of the Diawando room, which used to stand inside the Great Gate with the two Baobab trees we planted. These are still visible here, one male and one female- I believe the one that looks quite dead is the female, which always shed its leaves only to come back in force later on. 

The Great Gate which stood by the baobabs had fallen long previously. The hotel was handed over on the 1st of July 2017, and I never went back inside its perimetre again, so I don't quite know why these pictures are so hard for me to see.  

This is what remains of the Peul Suite...

I did however go back to Djenne many times, and stayed in my  own house on my land, I even worked in the bogolan studio before I sold it all. This picture shows how my house- to the right-  is collapsing and it is now gone, returned to mud,  says Baba, who used to be my manager at Hotel Djenne Djenno.

I will never have to see this destruction.  

I cannot go back to Djenne. 

I had planned to return in February to be present for  the 15th edition of the cataract operations at the Djenne hospital sponsored by my cousin Pelle and his wife Nanni. I also needed to see the library and its staff who are still working, in a much reduced capacity, with the digitization of manuscripts. I wanted to pick up their work on a hard drive and bring it with me back to Europe. The plan was that I should travel up that road from Bamako again that I have travelled a thousand times - this time in the company of Dr. Faira Keita and his team on their way up to start their cataract operations. 

I received the reply last night- I cannot go with them.  The Department of Health, ultimately in charge of this, has refused to let me travel because of the heightened security risk of carrying a 'toubab' (white person) with them on their journey northwards. 

I cannot use the local bus, which I did many times before- because the check posts will not let me pass... The only possibility would be a privately hired car with a military escort, prohibitively expensive.

And Bamako? Karen will have left to live in Senegal. There is hardly anyone remaining- the Sleeping Camel, that lively watering hole for most of the English speaking sections of Bamako expats, is now largely deserted, there having been a mass exodus of UN staff, NGO workers, and diplomats from Mali. 

That is not the entire reason for  the Minor Key that I feel  is surrounding me. The sale of my flat in London, which I thought was well on the way to be completed by Christmas, has run into serious difficulties because of some technical details and it looks as if it will fall through. 

I spent nearly two weeks there in December, hobbling around with my broken knee, packing everything up. Who knows what will happen now.. 

Nevertheless, it was a lovely Christmas here  with dear friends Jeremiah, David and Sanjay... but their exit reinforces this unaccustomed  feeling of loss...